Morning Warm Up: Dr. Mid-Nite
Dr. Mid-Nite has a cool costume and it was a blast to draw it. I've actually done him as a commission before, too. And when I draw him, you have to draw Hooty the Owl, too. [image src="http://thomz.com/blogall/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/drmidnite_block.png" align="left" border="image_border" link="http://thomz.com/blogall/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/drmidnite_display.jpg" alt="" title="" lightbox="false" ]
The idea of an actual medical doctor as a super hero is very interesting to me. There aren't a lot of them, at least not with practices. That's a fund concept I'm going to have to file away for a rainy day.
This one was drawn yesterday, posted today. I'm working on a new one right now. I do post these early to my Twitter feed if you want to get a jump.
Morning Warm Up: Hourman
It's everybody's favorite pill-popping superhero, Rex Tyler, the original Hourman. I think the first time I read Hourman was in the big treasury reprint of All-Star Comics #3, since reprinted elsewhere, too. So many different versions of so many characters I knew, like Flash, Green Lantern and Hawkman, as well as new characters like Atom, Sandman, Doctor Fate… and Hourman.
[image src="http://thomz.com/blogall/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/hourman_pre.png" align="left" border="image_border" link="http://thomz.com/blogall/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/hourman_display.jpg" alt="" title="" lightbox="false" ]
Even as a kid I questioned that cape. A yellow cape with a couple of red stripes on it looked more like a bath towel than anything else. Still, I love characters who come with their own countdown clock. And his appearance in DC's Whatever Happened To… backup in DC Comics Presents was awesome, too.
It was interesting figuring out just how that black area on his hood worked, too. Some people have turned it into a mask within a hood, but I wanted to do the classic version of the character.
These morning warm-ups have been fun, and I think I'm getting some pop and energy into the pieces, too. This one, technically wasn't a morning warm-up though. Yesterday I hit a point where I was mostly waiting on emails and had time to kill. But I think I'll refer to all these as "Morning Warm Ups" as that's where they started and what they're for.
Behold the Power of the Atom
I think I'm going to start doing morning warmup pieces. At least for now. I'm cleverly not going to commit to one a morning or anything because the moment I do, I'll get a big client job that sucks up my morning. There's a pro tip for you: You can't miss your schedule if you don't announce one.
[image src="http://thomz.com/blogall/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/atom.png" align="left" border="image_border" link="http://thomz.com/blogall/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/atom_display.jpg" alt="" title="" lightbox="false" ]
Today, I drew the golden-age Atom, Al Pratt. He was a big member of the All-Star Squadron, which is where I grew to dig him. His costume… let's be honest, it looks pretty silly in real life. But in comics, it's just cool.
I also started experimenting with a highlight layer on this one. I like it on this one. We'll see if I keep with it.
Sometimes You Just Want to Draw the Spectre
I listen to The Fire and Water Podcast, hosted by my fellow Kubie Rob Kelly and The Irredeemable Shag. It's a great show, and we occasionally tease each other good-naturedly, even leading to some wackiness like this fake blog I set up. One of their most popular features is their monthly review of the 80's series Who's Who in the DC Universe. They're up to issue 21 which featured a lot of "S" characters. They mentioned the Spectre and it just hit me: I really wanted to draw the Spectre.[image src="http://thomz.com/blogall/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/spectre_pre.png" align="right" border="image_border" link="http://thomz.com/blogall/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/spectre.jpg" alt="Spectre" title="Spectre" lightbox="false" ]
I always dug the Spectre, with his ridiculous costume, crazy powerful powerset, and a comics pedigree that includes Jerry Siegel. The post-Crisis 80's series was one of my favorites and all his stuff is worth checking out, and Brad Meltzer even referenced him in one of his books.
Anyway, I thought he would be a good warm-up sketch. I had a lot of fun with it, and I'll have to do more of these. It was drawn in Manga Studio and colored in Photoshop.
My Fiesta Equestria Commission List is OPEN!
I'm going to be a guest at Fiesta Equestria. It's my first time at an MLP Show. Hopefully it won't be my last. Knowing that I'll be the only Pony artist at the show, I thought I'd post my rates and make commissions available ahead of time. I'll certainly be doing them at the show, but if you want to be sure to get one, it's safest to pre-order. Also, if you want something really complicated (The Mane Six playing poker a la Dogs Playing Poker) I can do the work in my studio and figure out an appropriate price. Also, I'll have sketchcards and copies of my books and trades. Maybe even a Love and Capes trade or too as well.
Below are my prices. You can order online, but you'll need to then email me to let me know what characters you'd like.
Below is a gallery of some recent commissions, so you can see what you'l be getting. Thanks!
[pricing_table column="6" position="other" skin="orange" title="BW HEAD" price="$20" price_sub_text="" button_size="color_button1" button_link="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=NRTR8ZE3EQTPG" button_text="Order" ]
- Head sketch of your favorite Pony in black and white
[/pricing_table]
[pricing_table column="6" position="other" skin="blue" title="CLR HEAD" price="$30" price_sub_text="" button_size="color_button1" button_link="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=ELY3FEXBK29D2" button_text="Order" ]
- Head sketch of your favorite Pony in color
[/pricing_table]
[pricing_table column="6" position="other" skin="pink" title="BW PONY" price="$40" price_sub_text="" button_size="color_button1" button_link="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=XXCFN96JZ8KAC" button_text="Order" ]
- Full body sketch of your favorite Pony with graphic background
[/pricing_table]
[pricing_table column="6" position="other" skin="green" title="CLR PONY" price="$75" price_sub_text="" button_size="color_button1" button_link="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=6PVVZBXSUTWU2" button_text="Order" ]
- Full body sketch of your favorite Pony in full color with graphic background
[/pricing_table]
[pricing_table column="6" position="other" skin="purple" title="BW PONIES" price="$80" price_sub_text="" button_size="color_button1" button_link="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=QZ7ABSQWKDCXE" button_text=" Order" ]
- Two Ponies in black and white with graphic background
- Each additional Pony add $25
[/pricing_table]
[pricing_table column="6" position="last" skin="teal" title="CLR PONIES" price="$150" price_sub_text="" button_size="color_button1" button_link="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=PRCASGFE2JHKQ" button_text="Order" ]
- Two Ponies in full color with graphic background
- Each additional Pony add $40
[/pricing_table]
HeroesCon 2014… All the Sketches!
As if Denver wasn’t enough, I did HeroesCon this past weekend, too. Heroes is always a treat, with a huge pool of professionals and friends to spend time with, and it’s definitely one of the easiest shows to navigate and work with. I drove down on Thursday where I did some seventy-mile-an-hour-thinking (as evidenced by the pitch one of my editors got Sunday night) and arrived in Charlotte and set up. The con started strong on Friday and kept on going.
I spent a lot of time with my friend Marc Nathan and his Baltimore crew, which is always fantastic. And I got to see Jeremy and Kelly Dale, Craig Rousseau, Andy Smith, Todd DeZago… heck, one night I even got to have dinner with Romona Fradon and others. She was a delight!
I did a Kids' Comics panel with Stephanie Gladden, Mike Maihack, Chris Schweizer, Andy Runton, Jeremy Whitley and me, and expertly hosted by Jimmy Aquino. It was my first HeroesCon panel appearance and was a great one to start with. Jimmy will be posting the audio soon, so be sure to check this space for details.
I also did a ton of commissions. More than I have at any other show. I was regularly working late into the night on them, but I don’t mind at all. When I was a kid, my mother wouldn’t let me have a Kool-Aid Stand so I set up a drawing stand. There’s something cool about my current business model being the same as my younger self.
There's a photo of me including using the lamp in my room as a lightbox to finish a drawing. Any port in a storm, right?
The Shazam Family piece I did for the auction was well received, too. It garnered the most of any of my contributions, so I’m proud of that. Of course, when you’ve got the power of Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles and Mercury on your side, how can you not do well?
Denver Comic Con 2014
The weekend before last was the third Denver Comic Con and I was lucky enough to be a guest. I love doing the Denver show because I get to see my brother John, as well as spend lots of time with my former Kubie classmate Sean Tiffany. Add to that seeing buddies like Tony Fleecs and Sean Williams, and geat googly-moogly it’s a good time! This is my second time back (and their third year) and the show just keeps growing. A lot of their line issues seemed to have been fixed, and the staff was great in taking care of us.
I did two panels. One was on My Little Pony, and that was a lot of fun. Tony Fleecs, Jeremy Whitley, Andy Price, Katie Cook and I held court for a bunch of MLP fans. We were even covered by the Denver Post. The other was a Sketch Duel hosted by the lovely Rowan Rosanski. I’m hoping that some of our sketches get posted or sent to me soon. Some of them were really funny.
Amongst all the drawing, my first one was particularly special. Someone asked me to draw Slider, who I used to draw back in my days working for the Cleveland Indians. The buyer saw my Tribe history in the program book and remembered the strip. That was very cool!
I’m planning on being back next year, so hopefully I’ll see you there!
As usual, photos and commissions follow.
Please consider Love and Capes for the 2014 Harveys
Today's my birthday. You know what would be nice? If Love and Capes got nominated one more time for a Harvey Award. If you're a comics pro, you can vote here. Whether or not you think Love and Capes should get a nod in the "Special Award for Humor" category, be sure to vote. A diversity of voices enriches the awards.
My Free Comic Book Day 2014
I've been remiss is catching you up on my travels and adventures. Things get busy, you know? Anyway, let's talk about Free Comic Book Day. I've never been in town for FCBD, really. My first FCBD was at Alter Ego in Lima, and that was in Ohio, but a bit of a hike away. And, when my Goddaughter made her First Communion, I sat the year out. This was my first time doing a local event, this time at Carol and John's Comic Shop and their midnight release party.
I had a lot of fun! Attendance was great. I was amazed at how long a line of people were there two hours ahead of time. The artists were all outside, and fortunately it wasn't too cold (and I am a Man of the North) and we set up and sold and did free sketches by lamplight. I met a lot of Pony fans, sold some Love and Capes, and met a ton of great people.
If I happen to be in town again, I'd certainly go again. Then again, if someone finally wants to bring me to Alaska for FCBD, I'd be up for that, too.
Why I Liked the End of HIMYM, But Not the Finale
Judging by the reactions on the internet, I'm clearly in the minority. There are people who think it's the worst finale since Seinfeld. I don't think it was. HIMYM remains one of my favorite sitcoms, favorite shows, of all time. When it was on, it was clever, touching and funny. The Three Day Storm never leaves me with a dry eye, no matter how often I've seen it. The Robin Sparkles episodes kept getting funnier. I just adored it.
In crafting the finale, though, they set out a pretty herculean task. To make nine seasons of build up come to a satisfying conclusion. There, they didn't do quite as well.
How I Met Your Mother tried to do the bold thing. They created a sitcom that tried to do things different. Characters didn't always get the happy ending. Nothing turns out like you expect. Heck, the creators tried to make the gang sit at different tables at their bar until the realities of making a sitcom intruded and they needed to have a regular table.
Lily never became a successful artist. Marshall never became an environmental lawyer. And his father never lived to see his grandson. Ted and Barney were never the same after Barney started dating Robin. Things didn't work out the way they were supposed to or the way they wanted to.
Tragedy was always part of the show. The Mother (yeah, I know her name is Tracy, but she'll always be The Mother to me) lost her first true love early on. We already mentioned Marshall's dad. Robin finding out she could never have kids, even when she didn't want them, was heartbreaking. It was woven into the fabric of the show.
So, it feels organic to me that Ted's story includes The Mother dying too young and leaving Ted alone. It's not out of left field. They foreshadowed it this year and even last year in The Time Travelers episode where Ted gives an impassioned speech to an unseen Mother about how, if he had those forty days extra he'd want to spend them with her.
(Full disclosure: That's when I figured out The Mother would die. I say this not to show off how smart I am, but because I know me well enough to think that part of why I liked the end was the satisfaction of being proven right. But seeing the bad coming, like the countdown when Marshall's dad died, helps you prepare for it, too.)
But, while I liked where the show ended, I wasn’t thrilled with the last episode.
It reminded me of that one episode of Moonlighting where they run out of time and budget and Dave and Maddie wind up telling Whoopi Goldberg and Judd Nelson how the episode was supposed to end. The last hour was a series of vignettes that touch on the high points quickly, and as such it’s hard to get the true impact of them.
We’re left trying to intellectually fill in emotional gaps, and that’s always unsatisfying. I fully believe that Ted never looked back once he met The Mother. He never pined for Robin or wondered what could have been. When they met, she was his everything. But, one hour of seeing them as a couple isn’t enough to make feel that.
We spent nine years with the gang as they were, and no matter how good Cristin Milioti was, and believe me she was great, we’re just not going to love her the way we really needed to.
I’m okay with Ted winding up with Robin. I’ve heard that The Mother is the consolation prize until he can wind up with Robin, but that’s not so. If anything, Robin is the consolation prize to Ted for losing his true love. But true love, that’s the thing…
The show played with so many tropes, that I think it was also playing with the “There’s only one person for everyone.” There’s certainly a right person for everyone, but everyone doesn’t stay the same. There’s no way Ted and Robin would have ever worked as a couple. Ted wanted a family way too much. Robin wanted her career way too much. But neither the Ted nor Robin at the end of the show is the same one from the beginning of the show. They’ve achieved things and they’re different people.
Change has always been part of the show. Ted even says it to Robin during her moment of crisis before the wedding. “I’m not that guy anymore.” None of them are the same. Marshall realizes that environmental law isn’t where he wants to make a difference. Ted becomes a teacher to share his love of architecture. The Ted that meets The Mother is the one that would have been blissfully happy to stay with her forever. But because he loses her, he’s a different person.
There were things I didn’t like about the ending, most of them with Barney. It’s so obvious that Robin is his gateway to changing to be a different person that it’s painful to see him try to convince himself that he likes being the Old Barney through the last hour until the birth of his daughter. In fact, I would have preferred that he and Robin had never gotten married at all. It’s the biggest seam where I think they were finding new things to do when the series kept going.
I didn’t like Ted’s wedding, or lack thereof, either. He seems like too much a traditionalist to skip out on having a big ceremony. It’s okay that it wasn’t a big grand one (thought it probably should have been) but it served to make things feel small. I think they were trying to make the wedding the thing that brings Robin back, but there are other things they could have found to make that work.
I wanted to see more of what happened to The Mother. Her death was too quick. And from the construct, Ted probably doesn't need to tell his kids what she died of, but we needed to know. We needed to feel Ted’s pain so it wasn't an afterthought, or one we needed to intellectually fill in.
But there were lots of things I did like. I like that we found out about nearly everyone from the show, and that they went to the trouble of shooting images of everyone we’d seen in this season sitting in a pew watching the wedding. It made it feel like the moment it should have been.
Of course, that’s what part of the problem was. A year build up to a marriage that, ultimately, fails and becomes an obstacle. Meanwhile, Ted’s wedding is introduced and executed in a minute. I wanted to feel the same way about Ted and The Mother’s wedding as I did about Robin and Barney’s.
And the biggest thing I liked was that they executed the plan they had nine years ago. And it never occurred to me that the kids would participate in the story rather than just listen to it. They’re the ones who tell Ted that it’s okay to go after Robin. And they’re the ones who figure out what the story is really about. It’s not Ted trying to convince the kids as some people have said, and as I suspected it might be, it’s about the kids realizing what the story really means before Ted does.
The ending should have been bigger. It should have been longer. There are a lot of little things that I would have done differently. But their failing wasn’t the ending itself but how they chose to tell that ending.
It’s not everything I wanted, but I’m so happy I went on the journey that was How I Met Your Mother. No misstep at the end is going to take away my enjoyment and love of the show. For that, I give it the highest of high fives.